


A Normal Life

by OscarLeogere



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 05:52:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OscarLeogere/pseuds/OscarLeogere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sam had been trapped in hell and the demon population of earth had been all but exterminated, Dean and Cas decide that they should stop hunting and live a normal life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Normal Life

After hell had been closed, there was a short period of around a year where Dean and Cas mopped up the remaining hell hounds and demons who were unfortunate enough to be locked out when the moment of reckoning came. This was expected and the angels across the world each took their blood thirst and revenge for thousands of years out on the now homeless demons.

After the first six months when the demons who remained had become a part of mainstream society Dean and Cas went back to the old ways of hunting. Until finally on the anniversary of Sam's death Dean came to realise that the light at the end of the tunnel had been reached. He'd always said that Sam was the one who could leave the hunting game but Sam was stuck in hell now, Dean would never be able to save him.

Cas had agreed with the conclusion with a haste that was only afforded due to the consideration he had already given the issue, and to put the life behind them once and for all they agreed that Castiel must be rid of his grace. When the task was done Cas felt weak for several days before his body had accepted no longer having an angel inside.

Their life for a month was exactly as Dean could have hoped; he'd never had so much free time and Cas was finally going able to get the kittens that he'd always wanted. Their life was going to be simple, the bat cave, Cas, Dean and the kittens. The normal life he’d wanted for Sam.

\--

Cas had been insisting that they had to do a ‘weekly shop’ for a month until Dean finally caved and decided that maybe ordering food online wasn't necessarily the best way to truly experience the mundane life of a human he had so desperately craved. Dean secretly hoping that after one trip to the supermarket they'd never have to go again, but with a thought in the back of his mind he forced

Cas drove them to the closest shop and hurriedly walked with Dean to the entrance. He grabbed a shopping trolley and gave a light nod of the head to an elderly lady before the shop began. As an inexperienced shopper Cas spent nearly twenty minutes before deciding which bread to buy, treating every decision as life or death.

"Hey, I'm starting to get a bit tired, do you think we can hurry up a little?" Dean's legs were feeling slightly numb under the constant weight resting upon them. Cas gave a light shrug and returned his sight to the two courgettes he wanted to decide between.

About five minutes later Cas reached the aisle with the freezer and as he turned the trolley Castiel looked to his right and saw Dean out of breath resting his hands on his legs, knees bent slightly in the middle on the main alley.

“Dean, are you alright?” Cas shouted as he walked towards him.

“I don’t think I can walk any further.” Dean whispered and Cas took his shoulder, helped Dean stand straight and guided him across to the trolley.

“We can take you home and arrange an appointment at the doctors and I can come back for frozen foods tomorrow, they last years so I doubt a day will matter.”

Dean nodded and Cas supported his weight as he walked towards the tills. Pushing the trolley at the speed Dean was most comfortable with, a mere snail’s pace.

When they reached the tills the woman behind the tills eyed them suspiciously as she scanned each item. She avoided eye contact as she went through the shopping only occasionally glancing up to provide judgement at the couple. Dean didn’t complain and leant against the till as Cas packed the shopping by himself.

As they left the shop Dean only concentrated on the numb feeling his legs had acquired from supporting his weight and closed his eyes allowing Cas to guide him to where the car was parked. Cas walked Dean to the passenger seat asking if Dean needed any help getting into the car. Dean nodded ever so slightly and when sat he watched Cas pack the shopping away into the impala.

\--

Three days later Dean found himself walking on his stick into a consultant’s office after a long day of probing tests. Dean was asked if he’d like his partner to come into the room with him and instead of the usual protests as to the nature of their relationship he gave a discrete nod and Cas followed quickly. The one time his acute hearing had come in handy. The two men took the two seats positioned in the centre of the room and the consultant closed the door and walked back to her seat at the desk. She took a moment before turning around and giving a slight sympathetic smile.

“We are not entirely sure what you have. It appears you have _some_ kind of genetic illness and this has somehow caused you to lose muscle tissue incredibly quickly… We ran the genetic tests for all illnesses similar to this and you returned negative for all of them.” She paused for a moment and looked down to the floor before looking up, “Based on the MRI scan, we note that this weakness is across your whole body including your vital organs. After a conversation with a colleague of mine we have concluded that the illness is probably terminal.”

She paused for about twenty seconds before continuing. “We are sending off these results to a doctor in Germany who specialises in degenerative diseases and I hope that he’s seen something like this before, but as we have nothing to compare these results to we felt it imperative to let you know the situation.”

Cas’ hand moved across the arms between his and Dean’s chairs and took Dean’s. He felt Dean’s grip tighten strongly and they all sat in silence for several minutes. Until Cas finally broke the silence, “How long does Dean have?”

The woman pursed her lips, “I don’t know, based on similar illnesses any time up to six months. The time to say goodbye to family and friends would be sooner rather than later."

“Will it be peaceful?”

“One day he’ll be struggling to breathe or his heart will be struggling to pump blood around and he will fall unconscious, he won't wake up. I’d like us to maintain some contact throughout the course of the illness, we might want to run some tests again in a few days and I am reachable on this number any time if you have any other questions.” She scrawled her number on a post-it note and passed it to Cas. “Do you have any other questions?”

Cas shook his head and Dean did the same still sitting in silence.

“Okay, I’m going to leave you two here in this room so you can talk a bit more. I’m around until six o’clock tonight so if you have any other questions before you go ask the receptionist and I can come back.” She smiled lightly before leaving the room to a deafening silence.

The clock on the wall boomed with every second that passed. Dean just held onto Castiel’s hand as tightly as he could. After fifteen minutes of silence Castiel stood and helped Dean stand.

“Let’s get you home, we can watch some TV and I’ll make some apple pie”

Cas passed Dean his walking stick. Dean nodded slightly and in silence they walked towards the car hand in hand with Cas watching Dean intensely as he took every step.

\--

Dean was stubborn, it had been known by Cas for a long time that Dean would never ask for help and this was something that would not change when he became ill. On the whole in the first weeks there was little difference to their life in the bat cave as Dean could still walk short distances, he started to struggle with steps but once inside the main body of the bunker there were no stairs to worry about.

Dean was mostly independent: his arms were a little weaker and he had to support one of his arms with his other to reach things on the higher shelves; he couldn’t open jars as well as he used to; he couldn’t hold onto things for long periods without resting his elbow or arm on something; and he was struggling to sit up after he was lying down… He managed because he had to.

Until one morning, he simply couldn’t lift his torso to be sat up. Dean tried and tried for about twenty minutes until he simply gave up and he stared at the ceiling, thinking about his life so far… which he realised was in fact his life in completion. At around 10am Cas snuck a peek around the door and asked Dean if he was all right.

Dean shook his head and Cas walked over, pulled Dean upright and sat next to him on the bed. Dean took Cas’ hand this time, and they each paused and thought about the man sat next to them.

“Why are you being so good about this Cas?” Dean whispered. “I don’t know what I would do if the positions were switched.”

“We share a more profound bond… I know you would do the same for me, you are a good man.”

Dean nodded slightly, “I’m sorry you fell for this.”

“I’m not.” Cas stood and pulled Dean’s arm so he could stand with him. Dean grabbed his stick and they walked out of the room together and walked through to the living room. Dean sat down on the couch and Cas went to make him breakfast. Together they ate a bowl of some weird oat-y cereal that Cas had bought when he’d gone to the shops.

Most of the time the two men would be sat in silence in each other’s company. Cas didn’t know what to say, Dean would occasionally bring up things that had happened in his life and just tell Cas… Things that he wanted someone to know once he was gone. Most were things he hadn’t thought about in years, stories of Sam and Dean as children, as adults – even some stories from when Cas knew them that were just never brought up.

Every so often the conversations would hit on something normal, something where Sam being trapped was a distant memory… but other times they were stuck with a bitter aftermath of consideration of a story. Like the time Dean had told Sam that he should die of something normal. He felt a slight twang of guilt that Sam had undertaken the trials, and Dean almost felt that he was disappointing the expectations that Sam had for Dean’s future by dying too soon.

That night, Dean went for a shower and when he stumbled through to bed he found Cas lying on the usually empty side of the bed. Nothing was said as Dean lay beside him. He considered placing on some clothes, but his body was too tired and ached for sleep after the shower.

\--

A week later Dean woke about five minutes earlier than Cas, finding himself incapable of rolling from his back onto his side. When Cas woke up he asked Dean if he was awake, and Dean muttered a light yes.

Castiel eyed Dean suspiciously for a moment before helping Dean roll to face him, the way most mornings had started between the two of them now they shared the bed. Dean smiled as he saw Cas’ sleepy eyes meeting his. They both asked the other how they slept, Dean asking Cas, “Have you dreamt yet?” and the answer still being a disappointed no.

They hadn’t figured out yet whether Castiel would ever have dreams when he slept and they wouldn’t know until Cas actually had one if it would even be possible. Dean recounted his dream quickly, they were never anything of importance, bits and pieces of life placed together in a way that made sense only to a brains deep subconscious, but they fascinated Cas immensely.

“I just don’t understand how you come up with these ideas? Double headed dogs in capes?” He paused and stared at Dean in silence for another moment looking at the peaceful smile Dean had. He moved his head forward and kissed Dean lightly and then stopped kissing Dean and pulled away. “I’m sorry Dean, I overstepped my bounds.”

Dean shook his head and moved his hand to Cas’ face and stroked it lightly, “No you didn’t.” He spoke clearly but with a soft note of regret biting back in his voice.

Cas moved in again and rolled Dean onto his back again kissing him firmly, he made sure not to place any of his weight onto Dean as he moved his legs over so he was on his hands and knees positioned over Dean. The kisses were repeated over and over again, more and more firm until the light caresses of lips became long and complicated routines.

After a few short minutes of kissing Cas pulled Dean to a sitting position and removed himself from on top of Dean and went across to the wardrobe, grabbing the first shirt that he came across. He walked back to the bed and helped Dean place on the shirt before walking across the room to fetch a pair of boxers and jeans. Walking back across to Dean he smiled and pulled back the covers pulling Dean’s legs around and over the edge of the bed. Cas lowered himself closer to the floor to pull up Dean’s boxers and Jeans to his knees. He lifted Dean slightly with one arm and pulled the trousers and underwear the rest of the way up.

“Are you comfortable?” Cas asked as he let Dean button up his trousers, Dean nodding slightly. “Okay Dean, to the kitchen or to the living room?”

“Uh, kitchen?” Dean responded, seconds later Cas had lifted Dean and walked him through to the kitchen. He placed him on a bar stool and turned him around a little so he was facing the island.

“What do you want for breakfast? We have literally everything you could possibly want.” Cas asked as he walked across to the fridge. “Except fish, we had the last of that yesterday.”

Dean shrugged, “Whatever you want Cas. I’m not really very hungry.”

“Cheese omelettes it is then.” Cas ran through a list of potential additions to the omelette until the cheese omelettes had become cheese-mushrooms-peppers-ham-and-leek omelettes. Dean suspected Cas had stopped offering foods at that point because he was really rather hungry and wanted to eat as soon as possible and offering any more would simply slow him down.

When the food was served Cas placed a gentle kiss on Dean’s lips before they both ate their breakfast, as close to silence as possible. After dinner Dean felt tired from holding up his body and was carried through to the lounge where the two men talked and sat in silence for the rest of the day. This became routine as Dean recalled more and more moments from his life that he’d not thought about in years.

\--

“Will I get into heaven Cas?” Dean whispered. “Like, I don’t believe in God any more, I mean, I know he exists, but I know so do all the other religions… I just, I never worried about where I am going to spend eternity.”

“I don’t know. The advantage you have over me is that you can decide based on all the religions, I’m going to end up in purgatory… even after the fall. If you want to go to heaven you’ll go there, if you want nirvana, rebirth, reincarnation… or if you don’t want anything you get to decide.”

“But… would heaven let me in?” Dean’s voice wavered slightly.

“Of course, you helped shut hell…” Cas rolled onto his side and placed his head on Dean’s chest. “You’re a good man, you’re a righteous man… what I’m saying is you can go anywhere you like in the afterlife. They’ll probably all be fighting over you in the afterlife.”

Dean swallowed hard, and placed his hand on the back of Cas’ head.

For almost an hour they both lay awake. Cas listened to the gentle thud of Dean’s heart over and over again. His hands didn’t wander on Dean’s skin but they were resting on it, aware that it wasn’t just anyone’s skin… it was Dean’s. Cas felt Dean’s body finish drying from the shower underneath his skin and the warm heat of Dean’s body radiating gently.

Dean’s hands just felt the softness of Cas’ hair in the repeated strokes of his hand. The movements of his hand slowed to a near stop when he became tired. On his chest he felt the lightest of pressure from the angel's head and the light touch of his hands resting on skin. Cas’ breaths were brushing across his skin and then he fell to sleep.

\--

The next morning when Dean woke up he found Cas’ arms and body wrapped around him with Cas’ erection pushing against his skin through his pyjamas. Cas was still in a deep sleep. Dean wasn’t entirely sure what to do, his fantasies he’d had with Cas were now mostly incompatible with his current state, it didn’t matter per se but he’d not had time to think about it.

Dean pushed his hands along Cas' skin, with force intended but only caresses received. He ran his fingers along the spine of Cas' back and Cas stirred, jolting awake before returning to a peaceful state. He muttered something incomprehensible in his drowsy state before waking properly and pushing himself up the bed and kissing Dean on his neck and lips.

Cas' erection rubbed slightly along Dean's skin as he moved. Cas' hand pushed down Dean's bare skin and moved down Dean's body. Dean tried to push Cas' pyjamas down to no avail instead resorting to gripping Cas through his pyjamas. Cas' hand lingered away from Dean for a moment as he removed his nightclothes.

Dean's arm gently moved up and down slowly, his fingers struggling to find a comfortable position.

"My arms are getting tired." Dean whispered and Cas nodded moving one hand away from Dean to place around his hand and himself. Together Dean and Cas just let the rhythm flow, Dean didn't consider his previous fantasies of pushing Cas down onto his knees, getting Cas tied up... He didn't even consider what it would be like for Cas to fuck him. His fantasies felt irrelevant when Cas' hand was as soft as silk and the gentle rubbing of their lips was real.

After ten minutes of slow teasing Cas' let the rhythm of Dean's hand grow and when it grew it did so massively, the speed was soon too much for Cas to handle and Cas released over their two hands intertwined. Cas' now free hand moved around to the other side of Dean's body and propped him above Dean. He looked into Deans eyes and watched as he moaned every time he tightened his grip or gave a harsh thrust of his hand. When Dean finally came the two of them just lay together kissing.

Cas burrowed his brow, "That was perfect. Can we do it again?"

\--

The next evening, before they fell to sleep Dean turned his head and looked at Cas.

“Cas, I’ve been thinking. We need to sort out a fake identity for you… so once I’m gone… well, you need to do something with your life. I mean, we can make you Jimmy Novak again but…”

Cas shook his head, “Dean, we don’t need to talk about this. We can just carry on like we have been. We can keep pretending it’s not happening.”

“Cas, we can’t pretend it’s not happening. I can understand why we did that at first… but it was a mistake. I can’t do anything anymore. I can’t get dressed; I can’t kiss you, you have to kiss me; I can barely move my body and arms… The time to pretend it’s not happening has gone Cas.” Dean paused and swallowed his saliva and bit back a tear before continuing.

“I just need to know what you’re going to do with your life… Because I know what Sam thinks I’m doing with mine and I want to hope that’s getting him through his eternity of hell. So if I’m going to have an eternity, I want to know what you’re doing with your lifetime. What I was going to say is that… we need to give you an identity and as you’re the only thing that will be left of the family after I’m gone… will you become the last Winchester?”

Dean released himself and allowed himself to cry at saying that. Cas stayed quiet for a moment, “Dean, it would be my honour.”

Dean let out a long breath and felt a few tears running down his cheeks he wiped them off each cheek and looked back to Cas. “You should get a job. You’re going to need some more friends, aren’t you?”

Cas nodded, “I’ll get a job. I don’t know what.”

“You could become a librarian. You love books, I can see you sat at a desk in a library, waiting for customers reading a Stephen King book or something. All of the kids would love you when you do the readings of silly children’s books and the adults would love you too. The mothers of these kids would all fawn over you.”

Cas looked startled for a moment, “Wait, what?”

“Shush Cas, I’m setting the scene. The fathers would fawn over you too, and they’d all listen to your advice about which book they should read next… You’d have a lot of old ladies flirting with you too. They’d love how polite you were and how you know everything about the decades before they were born. You’re going to be so happy, I just know it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to teach you to be human. When we talked about it we said that’s what I was going to do. Maybe we should have left the demons to the angels and got those kittens, man…  Cas we never got those bloody kittens. I’m sorry. You’ll have to get those kittens when I’m gone man.”

Cas looked at Dean, “Don’t be sorry Dean. You’ve taught me all there is to know about being human. You know I love you more than anything right?” Cas paused for a moment to let Dean give a little nod. “Well, don’t you dare forget it. It’ll be you and me, right until the day I die.” Cas pushed a kiss against Dean. “I wish we had more time together.”

“Jesus Christ Cas, I’m not dead yet.” Dean puffed out as he gave a little smile.

Cas’ face fell and he pulled Dean around so that Dean could sleep on his chest tonight. “Now, we need to stop with all of this depressing talk and talk about happier things.”

Dean felt Cas’ arm reach around his shoulder. “Then tell me a story. Any story, it doesn’t matter what…" Cas paused and looked at the back of Dean’s head and back up to the ceiling.

“Once Upon a Time, there was an angel named Castiel…”

Dean prodded Cas sharply. Cas let out a slight display of pain, even though he had not felt that much pressure against him.

“Okay. So once upon a time, there was a prince in a faraway kingdom… Happy now?”

“Very… This prince is you right?” Dean chuckled and Cas felt his stubble rub against his chest.

“It’s a fictional story Dean. I’m not a prince…”

The story took a long time to tell, it was amusing enough and by the end of the story Cas’ mind had wandered well away from thoughts of Dean’s illnesses and Dean had fallen asleep.

\--

_Cas grabbed Dean’s hand and together they walked to the impala. Cas jumped in to the driver’s seat and looked over to Dean._

_“Hey, why am I in the driver’s seat?”_

_“Well we had to teach you how to drive somehow.” Dean rolled his eyes at Cas._

_Cas took the handbrake off and started driving, around twenty seconds later he found himself arriving with Dean at Paris._

_“Dean, this doesn’t make sense, why are we in Paris?” Cas asked as his eyebrows fell._

_“Cas, not everything has to make sense.” Dean smiled and grabbed Cas hand and dragged him to the marker of where the Berlin Wall used to be._

_“DEAN, we’re in Paris, why is there the Berlin Wall?”_

_Dean just shut his eyes and pouted. He took a step opposite Cas and kissed him. The kiss was short but it felt like an eternity. An eternity where Dean was never going to..._

_“Oh… This isn’t real.” Cas burrowed his head as he pushed Dean away, “Why didn’t I realise when you could walk?”_

_“Cas, I told you. Nothing has to make sense. We can go anywhere, anytime together.”_

_Cas shook his head and pushed Dean away. “You’re not my Dean. I want my Dean back.”_

\--

Cas woke up and shook at Dean lightly, “Dean… I had my first dream, but it didn’t make any sense.”

Dean muttered, “That’s great Cas but I’m trying to sleep. Tell me in the morning.”

Cas nodded in partial agreement and fell back to sleep almost immediately. The next morning when Cas woke up he rolled Dean off him and onto his back. He smiled at Dean and stared for a moment, listening to the calm breathing of his sleeping self. Cas found himself engrossed with the sound and just smiled at the man in front of him.

After a few minutes of watching Dean’s chest rise and fall Cas had stopped paying intense attention to the sound of breathing, he only notice when it stopped. Cas’ smile fell and he nudged Dean harshly but Dean didn’t stir. He checked Dean’s pulse, and it too had stopped.

Cas gripped Dean’s body tightly and he lay there as long as he could.


End file.
